Knitting Rules! (38 page)

While you knit a sweater is a very good time to come to understand the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and knowing that difference can mean a leap for sanity or a crash into defeat.

This concept can be illustrated by the difference between a Saturday night in Toronto and a Saturday night in a small town. Let's say a guy is walking down Queen Street in Toronto. It's a busy street, there's tons of people, it's a hot summer night, and the dude is walking home from the store with a six-pack of beer. Suddenly he gets an idea, reaches into his bag, and cracks himself a cold one. Buddy is walking down Queen Street, drinking a beer, completely sober, hurting nobody. I promise
you, if a cop sees that beer open on Queen Street, our friend is going to the Don Jail till Monday morning. The law says no drinking alcohol in public spaces, and that's what the cop is going to enforce. Toronto's a big city. The cop doesn't have time to work out that buddy is sober and harmless. The cop is enforcing the “letter of the law.”

Now, switch over to a small town. Same guy, same Saturday night, same beer. Dude's walking down the street, drinking a beer in public, breaking the law. Luckily, this is the only crime being committed in this small town tonight and when the cop sees him, he has time to figure out what's going on. He talks to the guy for a bit and finds out that he's sober and harmless. Because the no-drinking-in-public law is really on the books to keep harmful drunks off the street, and this guy isn't a harmful drunk, the cop reminds our friend that he shouldn't be drinking on the street and suggests he pour out the beer and get along home before he opens another. This is the spirit of the law in action.

How does this apply to sweater knitting? Let's say all the pieces of my sweater are knit and now all it needs is a neck band and button bands. Excellent. I glance at my pattern book and see that the sweater does indeed have a neck band, that it's knit in 1×1 rib, and that you pick up and knit some stitches after joining both shoulder seams. There's some other information there, like how many to pick up, what side the designer thinks I should pick them up from, and how many rows of 1×1 rib she thinks the neck band should have. Those instructions represent the letter of the law. The spirit of the law is basically saying that I should end up with a neck band done in 1×1 rib,
not that I should sit here for 17 hours tinking and picking up stitches along the neckline to get the exact number in the pattern, making myself crazy until I'm mean to my husband and hate the stupid little (big) sweater.

It's not that I don't have respect for patterns (well, I have less than most knitters, but then I don't mind ripping out stuff when it looks bad). I understand the law. I understand that someone went to a lot of trouble to work it out for me, and darn it, I appreciate it. Considering, though, that I'm familiar with the law and what it's intended to do, I don't believe anyone meant me to throw my common sense out the window and give myself new wrinkles trying to do things exactly as I'm told, or to disregard the experience I have gained from knitting neck bands in the past, or to have the kind of neck band I'd like. Therefore, I'll pick up as many stitches as seems
right, and if it looks okay, I'm just going to follow the rest of the instructions that specified a 1×1 rib for, well, as far as I want to.

There are many truisms about sweater knitting, like that the sleeve you've knit and the armhole you've knit should bear a certain relationship to each other, and it would be smashing if I could rip off a list for you to use. The ultimate truth about knitting is that sometimes the finer points of the craft become about “feel.” If something doesn't feel right, do it over. If a mistake is bugging you, rip it back or it will always bug you. If, by accident, you find a new way to do something that doesn't match what the pattern is telling you, carry on. You could be inspired. Never be afraid to trust your instincts. Therein lies the path to greatness, and in the end … it's only knitting.

blocking.
The gentle art of setting (by steam, moisture, or mind control) one's knitting and smoothing imperfections. Generally regarded as far more powerful than it actually is, the translation for
I think it will sort out in the blocking
is “I know I'm in trouble but I don't know what else to do.”

DPN (double-pointed needles).
The original solution to knitting in a circle without a circular needle. They come in sets of either four or five, and are quickly and rudely reduced to sets of two or three. Whichever is more useless.

ease.
The difference between your actual measurements and the finished measurements of the stuff you knit. The normal amount of ease for knitted garments is between a minus (for something very tight) and 6 inches (for roomy) — not 22 inches, no matter how much you'd like to avoid a gauge swatch.

entrelac.
A technique that involves knitting little squares that run off at angles perpendicular to one another. In its most advanced applications, it can be used as an intelligence test. Anyone who can knit a pair of socks using this technique without resorting to curse words, stomping, or flailing about should (in this knitter's humble opinion) be immediately sent to the United Nations, where her gift may serve the world.

Fair Isle.
Technically speaking, a style of stranded multicolor knitting constructed of traditional patterns and “peeries” (small motifs) native to the Fair Isle region of Scotland. Unlike other color work in knitting, all the colors are carried across the wrong side of the work when not in use. Traditionally, this is accomplished in Shetland wool, in the round, and with two colors to a row, and produces intricate and beautiful sweaters, mittens, socks, and hats. Nontraditionally, it's done in any yarn you can get, in any pattern you can imagine, and produces knitters who curse in public.

felting (or fulling).
Shrinking wool on purpose.

frog (frogging).
Pulling the work off the needles and yanking on the working yarn to undo it. So named because you “rip-it, rip-it.” This is done when the mistake is huge or far back, or you're very angry.

garter stitch.
The beginner's stitch, the simplest stitch, the stitch that's knitting in its purest, most straightforward way. Accomplished by knitting every stitch, back and forth, every time, forever. Garter stitch is, ironically, trickier on circular needles, on which you must purl each alternate round to make it appear that you knit every stitch.

gauge.
The tension at which one knits. Gauge measures the number of stitches the knitter is getting per inch and uses that information to set a standard for matching tension among knitters. Also, an art related to voodoo with rituals (swatching), artifacts (tape measures), and chants.
(The counting. Oh, the counting.) Not to be ignored, as the knitting goddess will frown on it, but neither are you to become obsessed and count swatches to the nearest 16th of a stitch.

grafting.
See
Kitchener stitch.

Kitchener stitch or grafting.
A clever way of joining two sets of “live” (not cast off) stitches without a seam. You thread a darning needle with matching yarn, then weave the yarn between the sets of stitches to create what looks like another row of stitches holding them together. You hold the two needles containing the live stitches parallel to each other, with wrong sides of the knitting facing and the needle tips pointing the same way. You're going to weave in and out of the stitches in four moves: two stitches on the front needle and then two stitches on the back. The darning needle is inserted like a knitting needle, as if to knit or purl, then used to pull the yarn through. The first move on a needle slips a stitch off after you pass through it, and with the second move it stays put. Here's how:

On the front needle, (as if to)
knit
(slip stitch)
off
(as if to)
purl
(leave stitch)
on
.

On the back needle, (as if to)
purl
(slip stitch)
off
(as if to)
knit
(leave stitch)
on
.

Repeat these motions, alternating front and back, until you've joined all your stitches, then tighten it up and make it pretty. Once you get the rhythm, you can chant
the bolded words to yourself. One tip that makes your grafting look better is to begin with the moves that leave stitches on and end with the stitches that take stitches off.

knitted-on cast-on.
One of the simpler methods for beginning knitting. This start produces a firm, inelastic edge. It begins with a single slipknot sitting on the needle. Insert the needle, knit the stitch, and, when you get to the part where you would normally drop the first stitch, place the new stitch on the needle next to it. Repeat. Most commonly executed by accident by beginners mid-row, this cast-on is the most common cause of “stitch gain” known to knitter-kind.

long-tail cast-on.
A method of casting on whereby a knitter pulls out a “long tail” of yarn, makes a knot and begins to work with the two ends of the yarn — the tail and the ball end gradually working toward the end of the tail. The amount to pull out for the “tail” is hotly debated, but rumored to be about four times the width of the piece of knitting. No matter how much you pull out, one of two things will happen. Either you won't pull out enough of a tail and will run out of yarn to cast on with five infuriating stitches before you've cast on enough, or you'll pull out so much that the leftover end will dangle annoyingly while you work, until in a fit of pique you cut it off and throw it away, only to run out of yarn at the end of the project by exactly that amount.

quiviut.
The soft down of the arctic musk ox, impossibly soft, ridiculously warm, and perilously expensive. It is not
gathered by shearing the animals, but rather by picking it from the rocks and scrag after it has fallen from them. This is not what I thought at first, when I had the upmost respect for those whose life's work consisted of hunting, holding down, and shaving the mighty and dangerous arctic musk ox.

RGR (relative gauge risk).
A term to express the likelihood of a knitting disaster related to a gauge misunderstanding. For example: A knitter making a scarf out of a yarn she knows well has an extremely low RGR, but a knitter making a fitted sweater with a new yarn, without swatching, and “hoping for the best” while knitting on a deadline, has the highest possible RGR, and faces almost certain disaster.

short rows.
Rows of knitting that are only partially worked across before the knitter turns around and comes back. This allows a knitter to fine-tune fitting, turn corners, and create a three-dimensional shape. Not necessarily a shape she was intending, but, of course, three-dimensional nonetheless.

socks.
Tubular clothing worn on the feet. The hand-knit variety of these items are occasionally found on the feet of knitters and people they know, but are far more likely to be found in their natural habitat, half-knit on needles. Unlike wolves, people, and swans, who all mate for life, hand-knit socks are unique critters with an almost incredible tendency to appear in singles.